Ideologues like those in the White House guarantee that negotiation won't work simply by refusing to negotiate. Same thing applies to appointing government-hating incompetents to head government agencies, who then run them into the ground, providing validation for their belief that government is incompetent and all-around a bad thing.

It's a universal principle in all of life. A sports team manager who believes his team can't win will have a losing season. A salesman who believes the product won't sell will fail to sell much of it. A military commander who believes the cause is lost will lose the war. A child who's been told that she's stupid will fail in school.

Faith alone won't move mountains, but absence of faith will surely leave the mountain where it is. Positive thinking doesn't always produce results, but negative thinking always produces failure.